There’s an eerie silence on the CenterStage as the ten students taking part in the Summer Theatre Lab join a circle and begin throwing a ball back and forth. More and more balls are added to the game, and the energy changes. One can hear gasps of breath, quiet laughter, feet moving on the floor. At its height, there are seven balls of different sizes and colors flying through the air. The students are working to focus their energies, bodies, and minds as they begin an afternoon workshop session led by three Williams alumni, all members of the Satori Group, the Seattle-based ensemble theater company.
The game is Satori’s signature warm-up. Though it seems simple at first, Sartori’s artistic director, Caitlin Sullivan ’07, explains, “It is about practicing quickness and ease, how you radiate to other members of the ensemble, how you practice being brave.” This game allows students to get into their bodies and begin to understand what Sullivan means when she talks about physical communication and working in collaboration.
Those are two things Sullivan knows a lot about. A theater and political science major at Williams, she and several classmates formed a theater company with some recent graduates from a conservatory in Cincinnati. Though most of the Williams members had never met their midwestern colleagues, the group traveled the country looking for a “new works-friendly city,” knowing they would be putting down roots together. They landed in Seattle. For the past six years, Satori has produced almost exclusively original theater, many pieces developed in a partnership with emerging playwrights.
That type of collaborative production is what Sullivan wants Williams Summer Theatre Lab students to take away from their experience. Sullivan, who joined the lab last summer as its associate artistic director, brings her experience in real-world theater making—and often several members of Satori—to Williams each summer. This year, the group worked with writer Mallery Avidon to plant the seeds of a play about family, class, and growing up. Students produced short theatrical pieces and their own brief writings centered on the theme of marriage. “We had students do everything from painting scenes and improvisational work to what we call ‘world building’ exercises to develop atmosphere,” Sullivan explains. Avidon took it all in, went away for a day and a half, and returned with the first draft of a play. Satori’s final project with the Lab students was a staged reading of that play, “Just Right.”
Sullivan enjoys sharing her experience at Satori with current Williams students. “I think a lot about giving current Williams students access to my experience,” she says. And they appreciate it. Sarah Sanders ’14, a theater and comparative literature major, says Satori “has been an incredible connection into the real world for me. It is inspiring to see these people only a few years older than I am out there doing it—working incredibly hard to make art.”
“It is exciting to have the opportunity to be a part of something that will go on to exist after the lab,” Sanders reflects after her reading in “Just Right.” “In this way, the lab complements the work the theater department does during the academic year.”
For more information on Satori Group, visit their website, and for more information on the Williams Summer Theatre Lab, visit its Facebook page.